Gay Priest Forced to Quit D.C. Church Episcopal Congregation Split.
The Washington Post, May 29, 1993, FINAL Edition
By: Laurie Goodstein, Washington Post Staff Writer
Section: METRO, p. f01
The Rev. Jim Steen, under pressure to leave his job as rector of St.
Patrick's Episcopal Church since he revealed his homosexuality nearly two
years ago, was forced to resign this week and will preach his last sermon
there tomorrow.
The debate over whether to ordain and accept openly gay clerics has created
painful rifts in the Episcopal Church nationally. In the case of St.
Patrick's, in the Foxhall neighborhood of Northwest Washington, the rift
may split the congregation.
Church officials who negotiated Steen's departure say he was asked to
leave, but not only because he is a homosexual.
Steen's supporters at St. Patrick's are so upset that they are planning
to form a new congregation that would meet in one of the members' homes,
said the Rev. Jerry Anderson, a diocesan priest and a former associate
priest at St. Patrick's. Church officials and Steen's supporters said it
would be difficult to estimate how many of the church's 900 parishioners
may leave.
The issue of ordaining gay clerics is not new to St. Patrick's. In 1979,
it was one of the first congregations in the diocese to hire an openly gay
priest when Anderson was given the job of associate rector.
Nationally, the Episcopal Church does not favor ordaining practicing
homosexuals, but bishops have done so for years because the church's canon
law is ambiguous. The Episcopal Church has ordained more homosexuals than
any other mainstream denomination, according to Integrity, an Episcopalian
gay rights group, which estimates that more than 50 gay priests have been
ordained since 1977.
When Steen began serving St. Patrick's in 1979, he was a married priest
with children. After a divorce, he became more aware of his homosexuality,
but said he hid it from the congregation. When he and his gay partner
wanted to buy a house together, several St. Patrick's church officials
advised him to be honest with his parishioners. So in the fall of 1991, he
told them the truth.
Within a few months, several current and former parish officers began
encouraging him to leave. The pressure to resign abated, however, when the
parish elected a new vestry, the church's governing body, largely
supportive of Steen.
But on March 17, the church again elected a vestry, a majority of whose
members were opposed to Steen. On Monday, Steen and the vestry reached an
agreement under which he would resign with a financial settlement, said
church Warden Tucker Battle, the chief lay officer of St. Patrick's.
Battle said Steen was asked to leave, but not only because he is gay. He
declined to characterize the nature of the dispute with Steen. "It has just
been a long, difficult time, and I think in many ways people have lost
sight of why all this is going on," he said.
Battle pointed out that the church currently has many gay members and
soon will be ordaining an openly gay church member.
But Steen's supporters, who did not want to be identified, argue that
the church has developed an environment that is unfriendly to homosexuals
and said that many gay members are among those who are so unhappy they will
leave the church.
Steen declined to be interviewed for this article. Most of his
supporters contacted said they were too distraught or angry to talk.
When Steen goes, St. Patrick's also will lose two assistant clergy
members, Battle said. One of those positions had to be eliminated because
the donor cut off funding "in part because of this whole issue," he said.
It will be some time before the church seeks a new rector, Battle said.
"In order to know who to hire, we need to know who we are." In the
meantime, he said, St. Patrick's will rely on visiting clerics.Staff writer
Laura Sessions Stepp contributed to this report.